A DAY WILL COME. A day will come when the margrave’s pick will suddenly break through the rock. Through cracks of stone he will see a burst of blue sky, brighter than fire. For a day and a night he will cover his eyes with his hands. On the morning of the second day he will widen the hole and peer down at the sun-bright river far below. Unseen by the castle watch he will lower himself on a rope to the river and swim to a waiting skiff. He will row downstream, hugging the cliff wall, for eighteen miles and disembark at the edge of a forest. In a hermit’s hut he will sleep for seven days and seven nights. After a long journey he will reach his domain and raise a mighty host, which will exact a terrible vengeance on all those who have wronged him or who attempt to stand in his way. One army will advance against the castle and one army will cross the river and advance against the town; and as both banks of the river burst into towers of fire, the margrave, grown gigantic with avenging fury, will stand astride the river with his face in the heavens and his arms raining destruction.
AN AFTERNOON STROLL. Far from the river, beyond the upper wall on the slope of the hill, lies the executioner’s meadow, where criminals are put to death and buried. Beyond the field, higher up the hillside, the vineyards begin. At the top of the vineyards runs a long path of beaten earth, which divides the vineyards from the forest above. Here one can walk undisturbed in the sun-broken shade of overhanging branches, passing an occasional vintner in a cart, or another wanderer from the town below. We recognize each other at once, we solitary ones who seek the heights above the town, and pass each other with a sense of fraternal sympathy not unmixed with irritation, for it is not society we seek on the upper path where the wood begins. From the path we can see a pleasing view of the town below, with its red tiled roofs, its church steeples, the twin towers of the guild hall, the merchants’ fountain in the market square, the garden of the Carthusian monastery, the courtyards of the patrician houses with their wooden galleries, the draw wells in the stone-paved streets. From the town rises a rich interweaving of sounds: the ringing of hammers in the blacksmiths’ street, the honking of geese hanging by their feet from the poulterers’ stalls, the clatter of cart wheels, the shouts of children, the bang of bells. They are the sounds of an industrious, prosperous, and peaceful town, prepared to defend itself against disturbance from within or without, honoring work and order above all, proud of its wealth, stern in its punishments, suspicious of extremes. The divisions of its day are well accounted for, with no room for idling or dreaming. But now and then, unbidden, a shadow passes across the mind of an artisan in his shop or a merchant in his counting house, and turning his head he looks up to see, across the river, the high castle shining in the sun. Then an image returns, perhaps from a tale heard in childhood, of a dark stairway, a princess with golden hair, a dungeon buried deep in the earth. Long ago these tales unfolded, long ago the prisoner escaped, the dwarf faded into darkness, the Princess closed her eyes. And yet even now we can sometimes see, in the high tower, a flash of yellow hair, we can sometimes hear, in the clear air, the sound of the prisoner cutting through rock. Ships pass on the river, bearing away copper bowls, armor plate, and toothed wheels for sawmills, bringing us spices, velvet, and silk, but under the river live trolls and mermaids. For these are the images that linger, of the river, of the castle, these are the town in dream. Then we smile to ourselves, we solitary ones, we who are of the town but bear toward it a certain reserve, for we see that the town reaches toward higher and lower places than those it honors. But the sun is halfway along the arc of the western sky, it’s time to go down to the town, which after all is our home, even ours. Grapes swell on our slopes, deer graze in the grassy trench between our walls, and in the winding streets, bordered by houses of whitewashed wood and clean stone, sunlight and shadow fall equally.
Catalogue of the Exhibition: The Art of Edmund Moorash (1810–1846)
THE BELLE AFTER THE BALL
Circa 1828
Ink and brown wash on paper, 9 1/2 × 11 5/8 in.
As an undergraduate (Harvard College, 1826–1830), Moorash composed a series of six satirical drawings in the lively vein of Hogarth, only one of which has survived. Despite a certain crudity of execution, it possesses the boldness of his more mature work, as well as a savage and almost disturbing air of mockery. The Belle is shown among her partially cast-off clothes, with her wig at her feet and her teeth on the table, but Moorash carries the well-worn theme much further: one glass eye lies beside her mask, one naked breast lies under the table, her left arm, still gloved, lies on the floor beside a bouquet of withered roses, and in her lap she holds her bald, toothless, and half-blind head, which stares at the viewer with an expression of malignant hatred. The details of the grotesque scene are scrupulously observed; each minuscule link in the graceful gold chain that hangs from the headless neck is drawn with a miniaturist’s precision.
WILLIAM PINNEY
1829
Black chalk, heightened with white, on buff paper, 10 × 8 1/4 in.
William Osgood Pinney (1808–1846) was born in Philadelphia, the son of Thomas Pinney (a lawyer and publisher of legal papers) and Ann Osgood. Although two years older than Moorash when they met at Harvard College in the fall of 1828, he befriended the younger man and introduced him to others of his set. Moorash’s moody nature and fierce independence of spirit made him a difficult friend, but he warmed to Pinney as to no other man. Chester Calcott, an undergraduate friend of Pinney’s who later became a fashionable portrait painter and a harsh critic of Moorash’s work, noted in his diary a difference between the two men: “In any gathering, Pinney will cross the room to greet you with his hand held out and a smile of welcome on his lips, but Moorash will always hang back, looking at you as if you intended harm.” Moorash once said of Chester Calcott that he had the looks of a god, the mind of a devil, and the esthetic sense of a brewer’s assistant.
Pinney intended to study law but appears to have been deflected from that purpose by his association with Moorash. Upon graduation he sold his share of the family property to finance his study of art in London, where he was joined by Moorash in the following year. Pinney returned to Cambridge in 1832 and spent two unhappy years as an apprentice in the studio of Henry Van Ness, a leading portraitist who was noted for his brilliant rendition of transparent silk sleeves, ermined capes, velvet armchairs, and ostrich plumes, and who permitted William to paint backgrounds and draperies under close supervision. After a year of indecision Pinney became an architect’s apprentice in Boston, where Moorash, who refused to paint portraits, was working in cramped quarters and eking out what he called an “unliving” by a series of obscure jobs, including the painting of panels for the backs of fire engines.